Systems and methods for automatically outputting a reply to a message relating to a media asset a user is currently watching when the user&#39;s device is on a do-not-disturb mode

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods are provided herein for receiving, at a first device of a first user, a message from a second device of a second user, and determining that the first user device is programmed to refrain from alerting the first user to the message. In response to determining that the first user device is programmed to refrain from alerting the first user to the message, the systems and methods determine whether the message is related to a media asset that the first user is presently viewing. In response to determining that the message is related to a media asset that the first user is presently viewing, the systems and methods alert the first user to the message, notwithstanding that the first user device is programmed to refrain from alerting the first user to the message.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

A user who has a mode on their personal device (e.g., mobile device) tonot be disturbed may not realize that messages have been sent to theirpersonal device, thus causing significant delay in knowing to respond tothose messages. While generic automatic responses to messages are in therelated art, generic automatic responses do not account for mediacontent that the user may be viewing. Further, these related art systemsand methods do not account for media content that the user may havediscussed previously with the sender of the messages.

SUMMARY

Accordingly, systems and methods are provided herein for, when a firstuser receives a message from a second user while the first user's deviceis set to a do-not-disturb mode, automatically outputting a reply to thesecond user if the message relates to media discussed in a conversationpreviously held between the two users. For example, to determine whetherthe message relates to media discussed in a conversation previously heldbetween the two users, keywords from the message may be compared withkeywords from a transcription of a previous conversation between theusers. The previous conversation that is transcribed may be selectedfrom conversations that have occurred within a threshold period of timebefore the present point in time. If there is a match between thekeywords from the message and the keywords from the conversationtranscription, a recommendation related to content of the message fromthe second user to the first user may be determined and transmitted tothe second user's device. In one example, where the message isdetermined to contain a spoiler for an episode that the first user hasnot yet viewed, the recommendation may be for the second user to recallthe message.

Systems and methods are also provided herein for, when a first userreceives a message from a second user while the first user's device isset to a do-not-disturb mode, alerting the first user to the message ifthe message relates to a media asset that the first user is viewing atthe time when the message is received. For example, it may be determinedwhether the first user is viewing the media asset at the time when themessage is received by determining whether the media asset is playingback on a device of the first user's. If the first user is viewing themedia asset at the time, it may be determined whether the messagerelates to the media asset. For example, keywords from the message maybe compared with keywords retrieved from a database that describe themedia asset. If there is a match, meaning that the message relates tothe media asset, and if the first user is viewing the media asset, thefirst user may be alerted to the message despite the device on which themessage was received being set to a do-not-disturb mode.

In some aspects of the disclosure, systems and methods are providedherein for, when a message intended to be read by a first user of afirst device is received at the first device from a second device of asecond user when the first device is programmed to refrain from alertingthe first user to the message, automatically outputting a reply to thesecond user if the message relates to a conversation determined to haveoccurred between the first user and the second user. For example, if twousers spoke or exchanged electronic messages about an episode of“Stranger Things,” and the message sent from one user to the other isdescribing an episode of “Stranger Things,” then an automatic messageincluding a recommendation may be automatically transmitted to thesender of the message if the recipient of the message is unable torespond.

In some embodiments, a media guidance application receives, at the firstdevice, the message, from the second device of the second user. Forexample, a device of the first user receives an email from a device ofthe second user. The media guidance application may determine that thefirst device is programmed to refrain from alerting the first user tothe message. For example, the first device may be a mobile device with ado-not-disturb mode, or a silent mode, set.

In some embodiments, in response to determining that the first device isprogrammed to refrain from alerting the first user to the message, themedia guidance application may extract a keyword from the message andaccess a database comprising a transcription of a conversation betweenthe first user and the second user. For example, the keyword may be anyword or words that are part of the message, and the transcription of theconversation may be a part of, or an entirety of, the words spokenbetween the first and second users during a conversation.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application compares the keywordfrom the message to a keyword of the transcription that is related to amedia asset. For example, the media guidance application may compare thekeyword from the message to the keyword of the transcription that isrelated to the media asset by comparing each respective keyword of thetranscription to keywords indicated by a database of terms related tomedia assets, and determining whether a respective keyword of thetranscription matches a term related to a media asset of the mediaassets. In response to determining that the respective keyword matchesthe term, the media guidance application may determine that the keywordfrom the message matches the respective keyword of the transcriptionthat matches the term.

Moreover, in some embodiments, the media guidance application may,further in response to determining that the respective keyword matchesthe term, determine whether a term adjacent to the term is associatedwith a negative connotation, and in response to determining that theterm adjacent to the term is associated with a negative connotation, themedia guidance application may refrain from comparing the keyword fromthe message to the respective keyword of the transcription that matchesthe term. For example, if the first and second users were discussingthat the users do not like the media asset, then the media guidanceapplication may determine that it is unlikely the first user would havewanted to reply with a recommendation relating to the media asset to thesecond user if the second user transmits a message about the mediaasset.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine, basedon the comparing, whether the keyword from the message matches thekeyword from the transcription. For example, the media guidanceapplication may determine whether the keywords are the same word. Inresponse to determining that the keyword from the message matches thekeyword from the transcription, the media guidance application maydetermine that the message is related to the media asset and that themedia asset was previously discussed in a conversation between the firstuser and the second user.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application, in response todetermining that the message is related to the media asset and that themedia asset was previously discussed in a conversation between the firstuser and the second user, determines a recommendation related to contentof the message, and transmits the recommendation to the second device.For example, because the first user cannot respond to the message, themedia guidance application sends an automated reply with an answer to aquestion posed by the second user in the message in a return message.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine therecommendation related to content of the message by determining that themedia asset is an episode of a series of episodes, and that the contentof the message relates to a different episode of the series. The mediaguidance application may determine whether the first user has viewed thedifferent episode, and, in response to determining that the first userhas not viewed the media asset, the media guidance application may setthe recommendation to be a recommendation to the second user to recallthe message. For example, if the users discussed an episode of a series,but the first user has not yet seen a subsequent episode and the messagecontains a spoiler about the subsequent episode, then the second userwill be given an option to recall the spoiler.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application determines whetherthe content of the message includes a spoiler of the plot of thedifferent episode. The media guidance application may determine that therecommendation is to be a recommendation to the second user to recallthe message further in response to determining that the content of themessage includes the spoiler.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application, when determiningthat the media asset was previously discussed in a conversation betweenthe first user and the second user, determines a present point in timeand a point in time at which the conversation occurred. The mediaguidance application may determine whether the present point in time iswithin a threshold period of time to the point in time at which theconversation occurred, and, in response to determining that the presentpoint of time is within the threshold period of time, the media guidanceapplication may determine that the media asset was previously discussedin a conversation between the first user and the second user.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determinewhether, at the time the message is received, the first user is viewingthe media asset. In response to determining that, at the time themessage is received, the first user is viewing the media asset, themedia guidance application may alert the first user to the messagenotwithstanding that the first device is programmed to refrain fromalerting the first user to the message. For example, the media guidanceapplication may enable a push notification to be viewed by the firstuser relating to the message despite the first user having silenced pushnotifications, due to the notification relating to a media asset thatthe first user is currently viewing.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application, when determiningwhether, at the time the message is received, the first user is viewingthe media asset, performs the determination by querying a media displaydevice of the first user to determine a given media asset that the mediadisplay device is presently generating for display, and determiningwhether the given media asset is the media asset. In response todetermining that the given media asset is the media asset, the mediaguidance application determines that, at the time the message isreceived, the first user is viewing the media asset.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determinewhether, during a predetermined period of time from the alerting, thefirst user has not responded to the message. In response to determiningthat, during the predetermined period of time from the alerting, thefirst user has not responded to the message, the media guidanceapplication may transmit the recommendation to the second device.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determinewhether a second message comprising content relating to the media assetis received subsequent to transmitting the recommendation to the seconddevice. In response to determining that the second message is received,the media guidance application may refrain from alerting the first userto the second message.

In some aspects of the disclosure, systems and methods are providedherein for alerting the first user to the message if the message relatesto a media asset that the first user is viewing at a time when themessage is received. For example, if the first user is viewing anepisode of the thriller series “Stranger Things” and receives a messageon their device that is related to “Stranger Things,” the first user maybe alerted to the message.

In some embodiments, a media guidance application may receive, at thefirst device, the message from the second device. For example, a deviceof the first user may receive a Short Message Service (SMS) message froma device of the second user. The media guidance application maydetermine that the first device is programmed to refrain from alertingthe first user to the message. For example, the first device may be amobile device that is set to a mode in which the device is commanded torefrain from providing push notifications to the user while the mode isenabled (e.g., a do-not-disturb or silent mode).

In some embodiments, in response to determining that the first device isprogrammed to refrain from alerting the first user to the message, themedia guidance application may determine whether the first user isviewing the media asset. For example, the media guidance applicationmay, in response to determining that the first device is a mobile deviceset to, e.g., a do-not-disturb mode, determine that the user iscurrently viewing the episode of “Stranger Things.”

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determinewhether the first user is viewing the media asset by determining whetherthe media asset is playing back at the first device. In response todetermining that the media asset is playing back at the first device,the media guidance application may determine that the first user isviewing the media asset. For example, the media guidance application maydetermine that the first user is watching the episode of “StrangerThings” by determining that the episode of “Stranger Things” is playingback at the first user's mobile device.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determinewhether the first user is viewing the media asset by, in response todetermining that the media asset is not playing back at the firstdevice, determining whether the media asset is playing back at a thirddevice of the first user. The media guidance application may, inresponse to determining that the media asset is playing back at a thirddevice of the first user, determine that the first user is viewing themedia asset. For example, the media guidance application may determinethat the episode of “Stranger Things” is not playing back at the firstuser's mobile device and, in response to determining that the episode of“Stranger Things” is not playing back at the first user's mobile device,determine whether the episode of “Stranger Things” is playing back atanother device of the first user. The media guidance application maydetermine that “Stranger Things” is playing back on a set-top box of thefirst user and may thereby determine that the first user is viewing“Stranger Things.”

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determinewhether the media asset is playing back at a third device by retrievingan entry from a profile of the first user, determining from the entry aplurality of devices of the first user, and determining that the thirddevice is indicated as a device in the plurality of devices by theentry. In response to determining that the third device is indicated asa device in the plurality of devices by the entry, the media guidanceapplication may determine whether the media asset is playing back at thethird device. For example, the media guidance application may retrievean entry from a profile of the first user that identifies a mobiledevice, a set-top box, and a tablet computer as devices of the firstuser. The media guidance application may determine that the set-top boxis listed in the identified device list and determine whether “StrangerThings” is playing back at the set-top box.

The media guidance application may, in response to determining that thefirst user is viewing the media asset, extract a keyword from themessage and retrieve keywords from a metadata entry in a database, wherethe metadata entry includes metadata describing the media asset. Forexample, in response to determining that the user is currently viewingthe episode of “Stranger Things,” the media guidance application mayextract a keyword from the SMS message received by the first user'smobile device and retrieve keywords from a metadata entry in a databasethat includes metadata describing the episode of “Stranger Things.” Themedia guidance application may extract the keyword from the SMS messageusing, for example, a named-entity recognition or natural languageprocessing algorithm.

The media guidance application may compare the keyword from the messageto the keywords from the metadata entry and determine, based on thecomparing, whether the keyword from the message matches a keyword of thekeywords from the metadata entry. For example, the media guidanceapplication may compare the extracted keyword from the SMS messagereceived by the first user's mobile device with each of the keywordsretrieved from the metadata entry in the database that includes metadatadescribing the episode of “Stranger Things.”

In response to determining that the keyword from the message matches thekeyword of the keywords from the metadata entry, the media guidanceapplication may determine that the message relates to the media asset.

In response to determining that the message relates to the media asset,the media guidance application may alert the first user to the messagenotwithstanding that the first device is programmed to refrain fromalerting the first user to the message. For example, in response todetermining that there is a match between the extracted keyword and oneof the retrieved keywords, the media guidance application may determinethat the SMS message received by the first user's mobile device relatesto “Stranger Things” and alert the first user to the message,notwithstanding that the first user's mobile device is set to ado-not-disturb mode.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may alert the firstuser to the message, notwithstanding that the first device is programmedto refrain from alerting the first user to the message, by determiningthat the media asset is an episode of a series of episodes and that thecontent of the message relates to a different episode of the series. Themedia guidance application may determine whether the first user hasviewed the different episode, and, in response to determining that thefirst user has not viewed the different episode, refrain from alertingthe first user to the message and transmit a recommendation to thesecond device for the second user to recall the message. For example,the media guidance application may, having determined that the mediaasset is an episode of “Stranger Things,” determine that the content ofthe SMS message received by the first user's mobile device relates to adifferent episode of “Stranger Things.” The media guidance applicationmay check a “Previously Watched” list in a profile of the first user anddetermine that the first user has not watched the different episode of“Stranger Things.” In response to determining that the user has notwatched the different episode of “Stranger Things,” which the content ofthe SMS message relates to, the media guidance application may refrainfrom alerting the first user to the message and transmit arecommendation to the second device for the second user to recall themessage.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may transmit therecommendation to the second device for the second user to recall themessage by determining whether the message includes a spoiler of a plotof the different episode. In response to determining that the messageincludes a spoiler, the media guidance application may transmit therecommendation to the second device for the second user to recall themessage. In response to determining that the message does not include aspoiler, the media guidance application may refrain from transmittingthe recommendation to the second device for the second user to recallthe message. For example, the media guidance application may determinewhether the SMS message received at the first user's mobile deviceincludes a spoiler of a plot of the different episode of “StrangerThings.” For example, the media guidance application may determinewhether the SMS message contains a spoiler by retrieving plot points(such as character names, narrative arc categories, etc.) of thedifferent episode and searching in the SMS message for references to theplot points. The media guidance application may determine that thecontent of the message includes a spoiler of the plot of the differentepisode if it finds a reference to one of the plot points in themessage. If the media guidance application determines that the messagedoes include a spoiler, it may transmit the recommendation to the seconddevice for the second user to recall the message. If the media guidanceapplication determines that the message does not include a spoiler, itmay refrain from transmitting the recommendation.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may, further inresponse to determining that the first device is programmed to refrainfrom alerting the first user to the message, extract a keyword from themessage, access a database comprising a transcription of a conversationbetween the first user and the second user, and compare the keyword fromthe message to a keyword, of the transcription, that is related to themedia asset. For example, further in response to determining that thefirst user's mobile device is set to a do-not-disturb mode, the mediaguidance application may extract a keyword from the SMS message receivedat the first user's mobile device, access a database comprising atranscription of a conversation between the first user and the seconduser, and compare the keyword extracted from the SMS message with eachof the keywords related to “Stranger Things” in the transcription of theconversation between the first user and the second user.

The media guidance application may determine, based on the comparing,whether the keyword from the message matches the keyword from thetranscription, and in response to determining this, the media guidanceapplication may determine that the message is related to the media assetand that the media asset was previously discussed in a conversationbetween the first user and the second user. For example, the mediaguidance application may determine, based on comparing the keywordextracted from the SMS message with each of the keywords related to“Stranger Things” in the transcription of the conversation between thefirst user and the second user, whether there is a match, and inresponse to determining a match, determine that the SMS message receivedby the first user's mobile device is related to “Stranger Things,” andthat “Stranger Things” was previously discussed in a conversationbetween the first user and the second user.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may alert the firstuser to the message, notwithstanding that the first device is programmedto refrain from alerting the first user to the message, further inresponse to determining that the media asset was previously discussed inthe conversation between the first user and the second user. Forexample, the media guidance application may alert the first user to theSMS message, notwithstanding that the first user's mobile device is setto a do-not-disturb mode, further in response to determining that“Stranger Things” was previously discussed in a conversation between thefirst user and the second user.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine thatthe media asset was previously discussed in the conversation between thefirst user and the second user by determining a present point in time,determining a point in time at which the conversation occurred, anddetermining whether the present point in time is within a thresholdperiod of time to the point in time at which the conversation occurred.In response to determining that the present point in time is within thethreshold period of time, the media guidance application may determinethat the media asset was previously discussed in a conversation betweenthe first user and the second user.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may compare thekeyword from the message to the keyword, of the transcription, that isrelated to the media asset, by comparing each respective keyword of thetranscription to keywords indicated by a database of terms related tomedia assets and determining whether a respective keyword of thetranscription matches a term related to a media asset of the mediaassets. In response to determining that the respective keyword matchesthe term, the media guidance application may compare the keyword fromthe message to the respective keyword of the transcription that matchesthe term. For example, the media guidance application may compare eachrespective keyword of the transcription of the conversation between thefirst user and the second user with keywords indicated by a database ofterms related to media assets, e.g., episodes of “Stranger Things.” Themedia guidance application may determine that a respective keyword ofthe transcription of the conversation matches a term related to anepisode of “Stranger Things” and, in response to determining the match,the media guidance application may compare the keyword extracted fromthe SMS message received at the first user's mobile device with therespective keyword of the transcription of the conversation that matchesa term related to an episode of “Stranger Things.”

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may, further inresponse to determining that the respective keyword matches the term,determine whether a term adjacent to the term is associated with anegative connotation and, in response to determining that the termadjacent to the term is associated with a negative connotation, refrainfrom comparing the keyword from the message to the respective keyword ofthe transcription that matches the term. For example, the media guidanceapplication may determine that a term adjacent to the term related tothe episode of “Stranger Things” is associated with a negativeconnotation, indicating, for example, that the message refers to theepisode of “Stranger Things” in a negative manner, which the first usermay not be interested in seeing immediately. The media guidanceapplication may, in response to determining this, refrain from comparingthe keyword from the message to the respective keyword of thetranscription that matches the term.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determinewhether the first user transmits a reply to the message within athreshold period of time from receiving the message. In response todetermining that the first user does not transmit the reply to themessage within the threshold period of time, the media guidanceapplication may automatically transmit a recommendation relating to themedia asset to the second device. For example, the media guidanceapplication may determine whether the first user transmits a reply tothe SMS message received by the first user's mobile device within athreshold period of time. In response to determining that the first userdoes not transmit a reply within the threshold period of time, the mediaguidance application may automatically transmit a recommendationrelating to the media asset to the second device of the second user to,for example, alert the second user that the first user is busy watching“Stranger Things.”

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The above and other objects and advantages of the disclosure will beapparent upon consideration of the following detailed description, takenin conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like referencecharacters refer to like parts throughout, and in which:

FIG. 1 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for, in responseto determining that a message is related to media previously discussedin a conversation between the message sender and receiver, transmittinga recommendation to the device of the message sender, in accordance withsome embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 2 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for, in responseto determining that a message is related to the media asset a user ispresently viewing, alerting the user to the message, in accordance withsome embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 3 shows an illustrative embodiment of a display screen that may beused to provide media guidance application listings and other mediaguidance information, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure;

FIG. 4 shows another illustrative embodiment of a display screen thatmay be used to provide media guidance application listings, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of an illustrative user equipment (UE) device,in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of an illustrative media system, in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 7 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for, based ondetermining that a message received at a first device of a first userand sent by a second user is related to a media asset previouslydiscussed between the first user and the second user, transmitting arecommendation to the second user, in accordance with some embodimentsof the disclosure;

FIG. 8 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for comparing akeyword from the message to a keyword, of the transcription, that isrelated to the media asset, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure;

FIG. 9 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for determiningthe recommendation related to content of the message, in accordance withsome embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 10 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for determiningthat the media asset was previously discussed in a conversation betweenthe first user and the second user, in accordance with some embodimentsof the disclosure;

FIG. 11 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for determiningwhether the first user is viewing the media asset and alerting the firstuser accordingly, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 12 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for determiningthat the message relates to the media asset and alerting the useraccordingly, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure; and

FIG. 13 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for determiningwhether the first user is viewing the media asset, in accordance withsome embodiments of the disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Systems and methods are described herein for, when a message intended tobe read by a first user of a first device is received at the firstdevice from a second device of a second user when the first device isprogrammed to refrain from alerting the first user to the message,automatically outputting a reply to the second user if the messagerelates to a conversation determined to have occurred between the firstuser and the second user, and/or alerting the first user to the messageif the message relates to a media asset that the first user is viewingat a time when the message is received.

FIG. 1 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for, in responseto determining that a device that a message is received at is programmedto refrain from alerting the message receiver of the message, and thatthe message is related to media previously discussed in a conversationbetween the message sender and receiver, transmitting a recommendationto the device of the message sender, in accordance with some embodimentsof the disclosure. At 102, control circuitry of a first device of afirst user receives a message from a second device of a second user(details relating to control circuitry and other elements of userdevices will be described in further detail below with respect to FIGS.3-6). For example, control circuitry of a second device of the seconduser may send the message and control circuitry of a first device of thefirst user may receive the message. At 104, control circuitry determineswhether the first user device is programmed to refrain from alerting thefirst user to the message. If control circuitry determines that thefirst user device is programmed to refrain from alerting the first userto the message, process 100 proceeds to 106. Otherwise, process 100proceeds to 112. At 106, control circuitry determines whether themessage is related to media previously discussed in a conversationbetween the first user and the second user. If control circuitrydetermines that the message is related to media previously discussed ina conversation between the users, process 100 proceeds to 108.Otherwise, process 100 proceeds to 112. At 108, in response todetermining that the message is related to media previously discussed inthe conversation, control circuitry determines a recommendation relatedto content of the message. At 110, control circuitry transmits therecommendation to the second device. At 112, process 100 ends.

FIG. 2 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for, in responseto determining that a message is related to the media asset a user ispresently viewing, alerting the user to the message, in accordance withsome embodiments of the disclosure. At 202, control circuitry of a firstdevice of a first user receives a message from a second device of asecond user. For example, a second device of the second user may sendthe message and a first device of the first user may receive themessage. At 204, control circuitry determines whether the first userdevice is programmed to refrain from alerting the first user to themessage. If control circuitry determines that the first user device isprogrammed to refrain from alerting the first user to the message,process 200 proceeds to 206. Otherwise, process 200 proceeds to 210. At206, control circuitry determines whether the message is related to amedia asset that the first user is presently viewing. If controlcircuitry determines that the message is related to a media asset thatthe first user is presently viewing, process 200 proceeds to 208.Otherwise, process 200 proceeds to 210. At 208, in response todetermining that the message relates to the media asset that the firstuser is presently viewing, control circuitry alerts the first user tothe message, notwithstanding that the first device is programmed torefrain from alerting the first user to the message. At 210, process 200ends.

The amount of content available to users in any given content deliverysystem can be substantial. Consequently, many users desire a form ofmedia guidance through an interface that allows users to efficientlynavigate content selections and easily identify content that they maydesire. An application that provides such guidance is referred to hereinas an interactive media guidance application or, sometimes, a mediaguidance application or a guidance application.

Interactive media guidance applications may take various forms dependingon the content for which they provide guidance. One typical type ofmedia guidance application is an interactive television program guide.Interactive television program guides (sometimes referred to aselectronic program guides) are well-known guidance applications that,among other things, allow users to navigate among and locate many typesof content or media assets. Interactive media guidance applications maygenerate graphical user interface screens that enable a user to navigateamong, locate and select content. As referred to herein, the terms“media asset” and “content” should be understood to mean anelectronically consumable user asset, such as television programming, aswell as pay-per-view programs, on-demand programs (as in video-on-demand(VOD) systems), Internet content (e.g., streaming content, downloadablecontent, Webcasts, etc.), video clips, audio, content information,pictures, rotating images, documents, playlists, websites, articles,books, electronic books, blogs, chat sessions, social media,applications, games, and/or any other media or multimedia and/orcombination of the same. Guidance applications also allow users tonavigate among and locate content. As referred to herein, the term“multimedia” should be understood to mean content that utilizes at leasttwo different content forms described above, for example, text, audio,images, video, or interactivity content forms. Content may be recorded,played, displayed or accessed by user equipment devices, but can also bepart of a live performance.

The media guidance application and/or any instructions for performingany of the embodiments discussed herein may be encoded on computerreadable media. Computer readable media includes any media capable ofstoring data. The computer readable media may be transitory, including,but not limited to, propagating electrical or electromagnetic signals,or may be non-transitory including, but not limited to, volatile andnon-volatile computer memory or storage devices such as a hard disk,floppy disk, USB drive, DVD, CD, media cards, register memory, processorcaches, Random Access Memory (“RAM”), etc.

With the advent of the Internet, mobile computing, and high-speedwireless networks, users are accessing media on user equipment deviceson which they traditionally did not. As referred to herein, the phrase“user equipment device,” “user equipment,” “user device,” “electronicdevice,” “electronic equipment,” “media equipment device,” or “mediadevice” should be understood to mean any device for accessing thecontent described above, such as a television, a Smart TV, a set-topbox, an integrated receiver decoder (IRD) for handling satellitetelevision, a digital storage device, a digital media receiver (DMR), adigital media adapter (DMA), a streaming media device, a DVD player, aDVD recorder, a connected DVD, a local media server, a BLU-RAY player, aBLU-RAY recorder, a personal computer (PC), a laptop computer, a tabletcomputer, a WebTV box, a personal computer television (PC/TV), a PCmedia server, a PC media center, a hand-held computer, a stationarytelephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile telephone, aportable video player, a portable music player, a portable gamingmachine, a smart phone, or any other television equipment, computingequipment, or wireless device, and/or combination of the same. In someembodiments, the user equipment device may have a front facing screenand a rear facing screen, multiple front screens, or multiple angledscreens. In some embodiments, the user equipment device may have a frontfacing camera and/or a rear facing camera. On these user equipmentdevices, users may be able to navigate among and locate the same contentavailable through a television. Consequently, media guidance may beavailable on these devices, as well. The guidance provided may be forcontent available only through a television, for content available onlythrough one or more of other types of user equipment devices, or forcontent available both through a television and one or more of the othertypes of user equipment devices. The media guidance applications may beprovided as on-line applications (i.e., provided on a web-site), or asstand-alone applications or clients on user equipment devices. Variousdevices and platforms that may implement media guidance applications aredescribed in more detail below.

One of the functions of the media guidance application is to providemedia guidance data to users. As referred to herein, the phrase “mediaguidance data” or “guidance data” should be understood to mean any datarelated to content or data used in operating the guidance application.For example, the guidance data may include program information, guidanceapplication settings, user preferences, user profile information, medialistings, media-related information (e.g., broadcast times, broadcastchannels, titles, descriptions, ratings information (e.g., parentalcontrol ratings, critic's ratings, etc.), genre or category information,actor information, logo data for broadcasters' or providers' logos,etc.), media format (e.g., standard definition, high definition, 3D,etc.), on-demand information, blogs, websites, and any other type ofguidance data that is helpful for a user to navigate among and locatedesired content selections.

FIGS. 3-4 show illustrative display screens that may be used to providemedia guidance data. The display screens shown in FIGS. 3-4 may beimplemented on any suitable user equipment device or platform. While thedisplays of FIGS. 3-4 are illustrated as full screen displays, they mayalso be fully or partially overlaid over content being displayed. A usermay indicate a desire to access content information by selecting aselectable option provided in a display screen (e.g., a menu option, alistings option, an icon, a hyperlink, etc.) or pressing a dedicatedbutton (e.g., a GUIDE button) on a remote control or other user inputinterface or device. In response to the user's indication, the mediaguidance application may provide a display screen with media guidancedata organized in one of several ways, such as by time and channel in agrid, by time, by channel, by source, by content type, by category(e.g., movies, sports, news, children, or other categories ofprogramming), or other predefined, user-defined, or other organizationcriteria.

FIG. 3 shows illustrative grid of a program listings display 300arranged by time and channel that also enables access to different typesof content in a single display. Display 300 may include grid 302 with:(1) a column of channel/content type identifiers 304, where eachchannel/content type identifier (which is a cell in the column)identifies a different channel or content type available; and (2) a rowof time identifiers 306, where each time identifier (which is a cell inthe row) identifies a time block of programming. Grid 302 also includescells of program listings, such as program listing 308, where eachlisting provides the title of the program provided on the listing'sassociated channel and time. With a user input device, a user can selectprogram listings by moving highlight region 310. Information relating tothe program listing selected by highlight region 310 may be provided inprogram information region 312. Region 312 may include, for example, theprogram title, the program description, the time the program is provided(if applicable), the channel the program is on (if applicable), theprogram's rating, and other desired information.

In addition to providing access to linear programming (e.g., contentthat is scheduled to be transmitted to a plurality of user equipmentdevices at a predetermined time and is provided according to aschedule), the media guidance application also provides access tonon-linear programming (e.g., content accessible to a user equipmentdevice at any time and is not provided according to a schedule).Non-linear programming may include content from different contentsources including on-demand content (e.g., VOD), Internet content (e.g.,streaming media, downloadable media, etc.), locally stored content(e.g., content stored on any user equipment device described above orother storage device), or other time-independent content. On-demandcontent may include movies or any other content provided by a particularcontent provider (e.g., HBO On Demand providing “The Sopranos” and “CurbYour Enthusiasm”). HBO ON DEMAND is a service mark owned by Time WarnerCompany L.P. et al. and THE SOPRANOS and CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM aretrademarks owned by the Home Box Office, Inc. Internet content mayinclude web events, such as a chat session or Webcast, or contentavailable on-demand as streaming content or downloadable content throughan Internet web site or other Internet access (e.g. FTP).

Grid 302 may provide media guidance data for non-linear programmingincluding on-demand listing 314, recorded content listing 316, andInternet content listing 318. A display combining media guidance datafor content from different types of content sources is sometimesreferred to as a “mixed-media” display. Various permutations of thetypes of media guidance data that may be displayed that are differentthan display 300 may be based on user selection or guidance applicationdefinition (e.g., a display of only recorded and broadcast listings,only on-demand and broadcast listings, etc.). As illustrated, listings314, 316, and 318 are shown as spanning the entire time block displayedin grid 302 to indicate that selection of these listings may provideaccess to a display dedicated to on-demand listings, recorded listings,or Internet listings, respectively. In some embodiments, listings forthese content types may be included directly in grid 302. Additionalmedia guidance data may be displayed in response to the user selectingone of the navigational icons 320. (Pressing an arrow key on a userinput device may affect the display in a similar manner as selectingnavigational icons 320.)

Display 300 may also include video region 322, and options region 326.Video region 322 may allow the user to view and/or preview programs thatare currently available, will be available, or were available to theuser. The content of video region 322 may correspond to, or beindependent from, one of the listings displayed in grid 302. Griddisplays including a video region are sometimes referred to aspicture-in-guide (PIG) displays. PIG displays and their functionalitiesare described in greater detail in Satterfield et al. U.S. Pat. No.6,564,378, issued May 13, 2003 and Yuen et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,239,794,issued May 29, 2001, which are hereby incorporated by reference hereinin their entireties. PIG displays may be included in other mediaguidance application display screens of the embodiments describedherein.

Options region 326 may allow the user to access different types ofcontent, media guidance application displays, and/or media guidanceapplication features. Options region 326 may be part of display 300 (andother display screens described herein), or may be invoked by a user byselecting an on-screen option or pressing a dedicated or assignablebutton on a user input device. The selectable options within optionsregion 326 may concern features related to program listings in grid 302or may include options available from a main menu display. Featuresrelated to program listings may include searching for other air times orways of receiving a program, recording a program, enabling seriesrecording of a program, setting program and/or channel as a favorite,purchasing a program, or other features. Options available from a mainmenu display may include search options, VOD options, parental controloptions, Internet options, cloud-based options, device synchronizationoptions, second screen device options, options to access various typesof media guidance data displays, options to subscribe to a premiumservice, options to edit a user's profile, options to access a browseoverlay, or other options.

There may be an option available, for example in options region 326, totake a snapshot of displayed media content. The displayed media contentmay include program listings, a television show, a movie, a commercial,and/or other displayed media content. The displayed media content mayinclude embedded content, such as a watermark, QR code, or barcode, thatencodes additional information (e.g., a title or other attribute of thedisplayed media content, a link to an external source for a relevantsegment of the displayed media content, etc.). The snapshot of thedisplayed media content may be saved for future reference, forwarded tofriends and family, and/or used for another purpose. In someembodiments, the option to take a snapshot may be available to a uservia an on-screen button, on a remote control, on a user input display,and/or via another user input that may be selected by the user.

The media guidance application may be personalized based on a user'spreferences. A personalized media guidance application allows a user tocustomize displays and features to create a personalized “experience”with the media guidance application. This personalized experience may becreated by allowing a user to input these customizations and/or by themedia guidance application monitoring user activity to determine varioususer preferences. Users may access their personalized guidanceapplication by logging in or otherwise identifying themselves to theguidance application. Customization of the media guidance applicationmay be made in accordance with a user profile. The customizations mayinclude varying presentation schemes (e.g., color scheme of displays,font size of text, etc.), aspects of content listings displayed (e.g.,only HDTV or only 3D programming, user-specified broadcast channelsbased on favorite channel selections, re-ordering the display ofchannels, recommended content, etc.), desired recording features (e.g.,recording or series recordings for particular users, recording quality,etc.), parental control settings, customized presentation of Internetcontent (e.g., presentation of social media content, e-mail,electronically delivered articles, etc.) and other desiredcustomizations.

The media guidance application may allow a user to provide user profileinformation or may automatically compile user profile information. Themedia guidance application may, for example, monitor the content theuser accesses and/or other interactions the user may have with theguidance application. Additionally, the media guidance application mayobtain all or part of other user profiles that are related to aparticular user (e.g., from other web sites on the Internet the useraccesses, such as www.Tivo.com, from other media guidance applicationsthe user accesses, from other interactive applications the useraccesses, from another user equipment device of the user, etc.), and/orobtain information about the user from other sources that the mediaguidance application may access. As a result, a user can be providedwith a unified guidance application experience across the user'sdifferent user equipment devices. This type of user experience isdescribed in greater detail below in connection with FIG. 6. Additionalpersonalized media guidance application features are described ingreater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No.2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005, Boyer et al., U.S. Pat. No.7,165,098, issued Jan. 16, 2007, and Ellis et al., U.S. PatentApplication Publication No. 2002/0174430, filed Feb. 21, 2002, which arehereby incorporated by reference herein in their entireties.

Another display arrangement for providing media guidance is shown inFIG. 4. Video mosaic display 400 includes selectable options 402 forcontent information organized based on content type, genre, and/or otherorganization criteria. In display 400, television listings option 404 isselected, thus providing listings 406, 408, 410, and 412 as broadcastprogram listings. In display 400 the listings may provide graphicalimages including cover art, still images from the content, video clippreviews, live video from the content, or other types of content thatindicate to a user the content being described by the media guidancedata in the listing. Each of the graphical listings may also beaccompanied by text to provide further information about the contentassociated with the listing. For example, listing 408 may include morethan one portion, including media portion 414 and text portion 416.Media portion 414 and/or text portion 416 may be selectable to viewcontent in full-screen or to view information related to the contentdisplayed in media portion 414 (e.g., to view listings for the channelthat the video is displayed on).

The listings in display 400 are of different sizes (i.e., listing 406 islarger than listings 408, 410, and 412), but if desired, all thelistings may be the same size. Listings may be of different sizes orgraphically accentuated to indicate degrees of interest to the user orto emphasize certain content, as desired by the content provider orbased on user preferences. Various systems and methods for graphicallyaccentuating content listings are discussed in, for example, Yates, U.S.Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0153885, filed Nov. 12, 2009,which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Users may access content and the media guidance application (and itsdisplay screens described above and below) from one or more of theiruser equipment devices. FIG. 5 shows a generalized embodiment ofillustrative user equipment device 500. More specific implementations ofuser equipment devices are discussed below in connection with FIG. 6.User equipment device 500 may receive content and data via input/output(hereinafter “I/O”) path 502. I/O path 502 may provide content (e.g.,broadcast programming, on-demand programming, Internet content, contentavailable over a local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN),and/or other content) and data to control circuitry 504, which includesprocessing circuitry 506 and storage 508. Control circuitry 504 may beused to send and receive commands, requests, and other suitable datausing I/O path 502. I/O path 502 may connect control circuitry 504 (andspecifically processing circuitry 506) to one or more communicationspaths (described below). I/O functions may be provided by one or more ofthese communications paths, but are shown as a single path in FIG. 5 toavoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Control circuitry 504 may be based on any suitable processing circuitrysuch as processing circuitry 506. As referred to herein, processingcircuitry should be understood to mean circuitry based on one or moremicroprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors,programmable logic devices, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs),application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), etc., and may includea multi-core processor (e.g., dual-core, quad-core, hexa-core, or anysuitable number of cores) or supercomputer. In some embodiments,processing circuitry may be distributed across multiple separateprocessors or processing units, for example, multiple of the same typeof processing units (e.g., two Intel Core i7 processors) or multipledifferent processors (e.g., an Intel Core i5 processor and an Intel Corei7 processor). In some embodiments, control circuitry 504 executesinstructions for a media guidance application stored in memory (i.e.,storage 508). Specifically, control circuitry 504 may be instructed bythe media guidance application to perform the functions discussed aboveand below. For example, the media guidance application may provideinstructions to control circuitry 504 to generate the media guidancedisplays. In some implementations, any action performed by controlcircuitry 504 may be based on instructions received from the mediaguidance application.

In client-server based embodiments, control circuitry 504 may includecommunications circuitry suitable for communicating with a guidanceapplication server or other networks or servers. The instructions forcarrying out the above mentioned functionality may be stored on theguidance application server. Communications circuitry may include acable modem, an integrated services digital network (ISDN) modem, adigital subscriber line (DSL) modem, a telephone modem, Ethernet card,or a wireless modem for communications with other equipment, or anyother suitable communications circuitry. Such communications may involvethe Internet or any other suitable communications networks or paths(which is described in more detail in connection with FIG. 6). Inaddition, communications circuitry may include circuitry that enablespeer-to-peer communication of user equipment devices, or communicationof user equipment devices in locations remote from each other (describedin more detail below).

Memory may be an electronic storage device provided as storage 508 thatis part of control circuitry 504. As referred to herein, the phrase“electronic storage device” or “storage device” should be understood tomean any device for storing electronic data, computer software, orfirmware, such as random-access memory, read-only memory, hard drives,optical drives, digital video disc (DVD) recorders, compact disc (CD)recorders, BLU-RAY disc (BD) recorders, BLU-RAY 3D disc recorders,digital video recorders (DVR, sometimes called a personal videorecorder, or PVR), solid state devices, quantum storage devices, gamingconsoles, gaming media, or any other suitable fixed or removable storagedevices, and/or any combination of the same. Storage 508 may be used tostore various types of content described herein as well as mediaguidance data described above. Nonvolatile memory may also be used(e.g., to launch a boot-up routine and other instructions). Cloud-basedstorage, described in relation to FIG. 6, may be used to supplementstorage 508 or instead of storage 508.

Control circuitry 504 may include video generating circuitry and tuningcircuitry, such as one or more analog tuners, one or more MPEG-2decoders or other digital decoding circuitry, high-definition tuners, orany other suitable tuning or video circuits or combinations of suchcircuits. Encoding circuitry (e.g., for converting over-the-air, analog,or digital signals to MPEG signals for storage) may also be provided.Control circuitry 504 may also include scaler circuitry for upconvertingand downconverting content into the preferred output format of the userequipment 500. Circuitry 504 may also include digital-to-analogconverter circuitry and analog-to-digital converter circuitry forconverting between digital and analog signals. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may be used by the user equipment device to receive and todisplay, to play, or to record content. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may also be used to receive guidance data. The circuitrydescribed herein, including for example, the tuning, video generating,encoding, decoding, encrypting, decrypting, scaler, and analog/digitalcircuitry, may be implemented using software running on one or moregeneral purpose or specialized processors. Multiple tuners may beprovided to handle simultaneous tuning functions (e.g., watch and recordfunctions, picture-in-picture (PIP) functions, multiple-tuner recording,etc.). If storage 508 is provided as a separate device from userequipment 500, the tuning and encoding circuitry (including multipletuners) may be associated with storage 508.

A user may send instructions to control circuitry 504 using user inputinterface 510. User input interface 510 may be any suitable userinterface, such as a remote control, mouse, trackball, keypad, keyboard,touch screen, touchpad, stylus input, joystick, voice recognitioninterface, or other user input interfaces. Display 512 may be providedas a stand-alone device or integrated with other elements of userequipment device 500. For example, display 512 may be a touchscreen ortouch-sensitive display. In such circumstances, user input interface 510may be integrated with or combined with display 512. Display 512 may beone or more of a monitor, a television, a liquid crystal display (LCD)for a mobile device, amorphous silicon display, low temperature polysilicon display, electronic ink display, electrophoretic display, activematrix display, electro-wetting display, electrofluidic display, cathoderay tube display, light-emitting diode display, electroluminescentdisplay, plasma display panel, high-performance addressing display,thin-film transistor display, organic light-emitting diode display,surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED), laser television,carbon nanotubes, quantum dot display, interferometric modulatordisplay, or any other suitable equipment for displaying visual images.In some embodiments, display 512 may be HDTV-capable. In someembodiments, display 512 may be a 3D display, and the interactive mediaguidance application and any suitable content may be displayed in 3D. Avideo card or graphics card may generate the output to the display 512.The video card may offer various functions such as accelerated renderingof 3D scenes and 2D graphics, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, TV output, or theability to connect multiple monitors. The video card may be anyprocessing circuitry described above in relation to control circuitry504. The video card may be integrated with the control circuitry 504.Speakers 514 may be provided as integrated with other elements of userequipment device 500 or may be stand-alone units. The audio component ofvideos and other content displayed on display 512 may be played throughspeakers 514. In some embodiments, the audio may be distributed to areceiver (not shown), which processes and outputs the audio via speakers514.

The guidance application may be implemented using any suitablearchitecture. For example, it may be a stand-alone applicationwholly-implemented on user equipment device 500. In such an approach,instructions of the application are stored locally (e.g., in storage508), and data for use by the application is downloaded on a periodicbasis (e.g., from an out-of-band feed, from an Internet resource, orusing another suitable approach). Control circuitry 504 may retrieveinstructions of the application from storage 508 and process theinstructions to generate any of the displays discussed herein. Based onthe processed instructions, control circuitry 504 may determine whataction to perform when input is received from input interface 510. Forexample, movement of a cursor on a display up/down may be indicated bythe processed instructions when input interface 510 indicates that anup/down button was selected.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is a client-serverbased application. Data for use by a thick or thin client implemented onuser equipment device 500 is retrieved on-demand by issuing requests toa server remote to the user equipment device 500. In one example of aclient-server based guidance application, control circuitry 504 runs aweb browser that interprets web pages provided by a remote server. Forexample, the remote server may store the instructions for theapplication in a storage device. The remote server may process thestored instructions using circuitry (e.g., control circuitry 504) andgenerate the displays discussed above and below. The client device mayreceive the displays generated by the remote server and may display thecontent of the displays locally on equipment device 500. This way, theprocessing of the instructions is performed remotely by the server whilethe resulting displays are provided locally on equipment device 500.Equipment device 500 may receive inputs from the user via inputinterface 510 and transmit those inputs to the remote server forprocessing and generating the corresponding displays. For example,equipment device 500 may transmit a communication to the remote serverindicating that an up/down button was selected via input interface 510.The remote server may process instructions in accordance with that inputand generate a display of the application corresponding to the input(e.g., a display that moves a cursor up/down). The generated display isthen transmitted to equipment device 500 for presentation to the user.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is downloaded andinterpreted or otherwise run by an interpreter or virtual machine (runby control circuitry 504). In some embodiments, the guidance applicationmay be encoded in the ETV Binary Interchange Format (EBIF), received bycontrol circuitry 504 as part of a suitable feed, and interpreted by auser agent running on control circuitry 504. For example, the guidanceapplication may be an EBIF application. In some embodiments, theguidance application may be defined by a series of JAVA-based files thatare received and run by a local virtual machine or other suitablemiddleware executed by control circuitry 504. In some of suchembodiments (e.g., those employing MPEG-2 or other digital mediaencoding schemes), the guidance application may be, for example, encodedand transmitted in an MPEG-2 object carousel with the MPEG audio andvideo packets of a program.

User equipment device 500 of FIG. 5 can be implemented in system 600 ofFIG. 6 as user television equipment 602, user computer equipment 604,wireless user communications device 606, or any other type of userequipment suitable for accessing content, such as a non-portable gamingmachine. For simplicity, these devices may be referred to hereincollectively as user equipment or user equipment devices, and may besubstantially similar to user equipment devices described above. Userequipment devices, on which a media guidance application may beimplemented, may function as a standalone device or may be part of anetwork of devices. Various network configurations of devices may beimplemented and are discussed in more detail below.

A user equipment device utilizing at least some of the system featuresdescribed above in connection with FIG. 5 may not be classified solelyas user television equipment 602, user computer equipment 604, or awireless user communications device 606. For example, user televisionequipment 602 may, like some user computer equipment 604, beInternet-enabled allowing for access to Internet content, while usercomputer equipment 604 may, like some television equipment 602, includea tuner allowing for access to television programming. The mediaguidance application may have the same layout on various different typesof user equipment or may be tailored to the display capabilities of theuser equipment. For example, on user computer equipment 604, theguidance application may be provided as a web site accessed by a webbrowser. In another example, the guidance application may be scaled downfor wireless user communications devices 606.

In system 600, there is typically more than one of each type of userequipment device but only one of each is shown in FIG. 6 to avoidovercomplicating the drawing. In addition, each user may utilize morethan one type of user equipment device and also more than one of eachtype of user equipment device.

In some embodiments, a user equipment device (e.g., user televisionequipment 602, user computer equipment 604, wireless user communicationsdevice 606) may be referred to as a “second screen device.” For example,a second screen device may supplement content presented on a first userequipment device. The content presented on the second screen device maybe any suitable content that supplements the content presented on thefirst device. In some embodiments, the second screen device provides aninterface for adjusting settings and display preferences of the firstdevice. In some embodiments, the second screen device is configured forinteracting with other second screen devices or for interacting with asocial network. The second screen device can be located in the same roomas the first device, a different room from the first device but in thesame house or building, or in a different building from the firstdevice.

The user may also set various settings to maintain consistent mediaguidance application settings across in-home devices and remote devices.Settings include those described herein, as well as channel and programfavorites, programming preferences that the guidance applicationutilizes to make programming recommendations, display preferences, andother desirable guidance settings. For example, if a user sets a channelas a favorite on, for example, the web site www.Tivo.com on theirpersonal computer at their office, the same channel would appear as afavorite on the user's in-home devices (e.g., user television equipmentand user computer equipment) as well as the user's mobile devices, ifdesired. Therefore, changes made on one user equipment device can changethe guidance experience on another user equipment device, regardless ofwhether they are the same or a different type of user equipment device.In addition, the changes made may be based on settings input by a user,as well as user activity monitored by the guidance application.

The user equipment devices may be coupled to communications network 614.Namely, user television equipment 602, user computer equipment 604, andwireless user communications device 606 are coupled to communicationsnetwork 614 via communications paths 608, 610, and 612, respectively.

Communications network 614 may be one or more networks including theInternet, a mobile phone network, mobile voice or data network (e.g., a4G or LTE network), cable network, public switched telephone network, orother types of communications network or combinations of communicationsnetworks. Paths 608, 610, and 612 may separately or together include oneor more communications paths, such as, a satellite path, a fiber-opticpath, a cable path, a path that supports Internet communications (e.g.,IPTV), free-space connections (e.g., for broadcast or other wirelesssignals), or any other suitable wired or wireless communications path orcombination of such paths. Path 612 is drawn with dotted lines toindicate that in the exemplary embodiment shown in FIG. 6 it is awireless path and paths 608 and 610 are drawn as solid lines to indicatethey are wired paths (although these paths may be wireless paths, ifdesired). Communications with the user equipment devices may be providedby one or more of these communications paths, but are shown as a singlepath in FIG. 6 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Although communications paths are not drawn between user equipmentdevices, these devices may communicate directly with each other viacommunication paths, such as those described above in connection withpaths 608, 610, and 612, as well as other short-range point-to-pointcommunication paths, such as USB cables, IEEE 1394 cables, wirelesspaths (e.g., Bluetooth, infrared, IEEE 802-11x, etc.), or othershort-range communication via wired or wireless paths. BLUETOOTH is acertification mark owned by Bluetooth SIG, INC. The user equipmentdevices may also communicate with each other directly through anindirect path via communications network 614.

System 600 includes content source 616 and media guidance data source618 coupled to communications network 614 via communication paths 620and 622, respectively. Paths 620 and 622 may include any of thecommunication paths described above in connection with paths 608, 610,and 612. Communications with the content source 616 and media guidancedata source 618 may be exchanged over one or more communications paths,but are shown as a single path in FIG. 6 to avoid overcomplicating thedrawing. In addition, there may be more than one of each of contentsource 616 and media guidance data source 618, but only one of each isshown in FIG. 6 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing. (The differenttypes of each of these sources are discussed below.) If desired, contentsource 616 and media guidance data source 618 may be integrated as onesource device. Although communications between sources 616 and 618 withuser equipment devices 602, 604, and 606 are shown as throughcommunications network 614, in some embodiments, sources 616 and 618 maycommunicate directly with user equipment devices 602, 604, and 606 viacommunication paths (not shown) such as those described above inconnection with paths 608, 610, and 612.

System 600 may also include an advertisement source 624 coupled tocommunications network 614 via a communications path 626. Path 626 mayinclude any of the communication paths described above in connectionwith paths 608, 610, and 612. Advertisement source 624 may includeadvertisement logic to determine which advertisements to transmit tospecific users and under which circumstances. For example, a cableoperator may have the right to insert advertisements during specifictime slots on specific channels. Thus, advertisement source 624 maytransmit advertisements to users during those time slots. As anotherexample, advertisement source may target advertisements based on thedemographics of users known to view a particular show (e.g., teenagersviewing a reality show). As yet another example, advertisement sourcemay provide different advertisements depending on the location of theuser equipment viewing a media asset (e.g., east coast or west coast).

In some embodiments, advertisement source 624 may be configured tomaintain user information including advertisement-suitability scoresassociated with user in order to provide targeted advertising.Additionally or alternatively, a server associated with advertisementsource 624 may be configured to store raw information that may be usedto derive advertisement-suitability scores. In some embodiments,advertisement source 624 may transmit a request to another device forthe raw information and calculate the advertisement-suitability scores.Advertisement source 624 may update advertisement-suitability scores forspecific users (e.g., first subset, second subset, or third subset ofusers) and transmit an advertisement of the target product toappropriate users.

Content source 616 may include one or more types of content distributionequipment including a television distribution facility, cable systemheadend, satellite distribution facility, programming sources (e.g.,television broadcasters, such as NBC, ABC, HBO, etc.), intermediatedistribution facilities and/or servers, Internet providers, on-demandmedia servers, and other content providers. NBC is a trademark owned bythe National Broadcasting Company, Inc., ABC is a trademark owned by theAmerican Broadcasting Company, Inc., and HBO is a trademark owned by theHome Box Office, Inc. Content source 616 may be the originator ofcontent (e.g., a television broadcaster, a Webcast provider, etc.) ormay not be the originator of content (e.g., an on-demand contentprovider, an Internet provider of content of broadcast programs fordownloading, etc.). Content source 616 may include cable sources,satellite providers, on-demand providers, Internet providers,over-the-top content providers, or other providers of content. Contentsource 616 may also include a remote media server used to storedifferent types of content (including video content selected by a user),in a location remote from any of the user equipment devices. Systems andmethods for remote storage of content, and providing remotely storedcontent to user equipment are discussed in greater detail in connectionwith Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 7,761,892, issued Jul. 20, 2010, whichis hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Media guidance data source 618 may provide media guidance data, such asthe media guidance data described above. Media guidance data may beprovided to the user equipment devices using any suitable approach. Insome embodiments, the guidance application may be a stand-aloneinteractive television program guide that receives program guide datavia a data feed (e.g., a continuous feed or trickle feed). Programschedule data and other guidance data may be provided to the userequipment on a television channel sideband, using an in-band digitalsignal, using an out-of-band digital signal, or by any other suitabledata transmission technique. Program schedule data and other mediaguidance data may be provided to user equipment on multiple analog ordigital television channels.

In some embodiments, guidance data from media guidance data source 618may be provided to users' equipment using a client-server approach. Forexample, a user equipment device may pull media guidance data from aserver, or a server may push media guidance data to a user equipmentdevice. In some embodiments, a guidance application client residing onthe user's equipment may initiate sessions with source 618 to obtainguidance data when needed, e.g., when the guidance data is out of dateor when the user equipment device receives a request from the user toreceive data. Media guidance may be provided to the user equipment withany suitable frequency (e.g., continuously, daily, a user-specifiedperiod of time, a system-specified period of time, in response to arequest from user equipment, etc.). Media guidance data source 618 mayprovide user equipment devices 602, 604, and 606 the media guidanceapplication itself or software updates for the media guidanceapplication.

In some embodiments, the media guidance data may include viewer data.For example, the viewer data may include current and/or historical useractivity information (e.g., what content the user typically watches,what times of day the user watches content, whether the user interactswith a social network, at what times the user interacts with a socialnetwork to post information, what types of content the user typicallywatches (e.g., pay TV or free TV), mood, brain activity information,etc.). The media guidance data may also include subscription data. Forexample, the subscription data may identify to which sources or servicesa given user subscribes and/or to which sources or services the givenuser has previously subscribed but later terminated access (e.g.,whether the user subscribes to premium channels, whether the user hasadded a premium level of services, whether the user has increasedInternet speed). In some embodiments, the viewer data and/or thesubscription data may identify patterns of a given user for a period ofmore than one year. The media guidance data may include a model (e.g., asurvivor model) used for generating a score that indicates a likelihooda given user will terminate access to a service/source. For example, themedia guidance application may process the viewer data with thesubscription data using the model to generate a value or score thatindicates a likelihood of whether the given user will terminate accessto a particular service or source. In particular, a higher score mayindicate a higher level of confidence that the user will terminateaccess to a particular service or source. Based on the score, the mediaguidance application may generate promotions that entice the user tokeep the particular service or source indicated by the score as one towhich the user will likely terminate access.

Media guidance applications may be, for example, stand-aloneapplications implemented on user equipment devices. For example, themedia guidance application may be implemented as software or a set ofexecutable instructions which may be stored in storage 508, and executedby control circuitry 504 of a user equipment device 500. In someembodiments, media guidance applications may be client-serverapplications where only a client application resides on the userequipment device, and server application resides on a remote server. Forexample, media guidance applications may be implemented partially as aclient application on control circuitry 504 of user equipment device 500and partially on a remote server as a server application (e.g., mediaguidance data source 618) running on control circuitry of the remoteserver. When executed by control circuitry of the remote server (such asmedia guidance data source 618), the media guidance application mayinstruct the control circuitry to generate the guidance applicationdisplays and transmit the generated displays to the user equipmentdevices. The server application may instruct the control circuitry ofthe media guidance data source 618 to transmit data for storage on theuser equipment. The client application may instruct control circuitry ofthe receiving user equipment to generate the guidance applicationdisplays.

Content and/or media guidance data delivered to user equipment devices602, 604, and 606 may be over-the-top (OTT) content. OTT contentdelivery allows Internet-enabled user devices, including any userequipment device described above, to receive content that is transferredover the Internet, including any content described above, in addition tocontent received over cable or satellite connections. OTT content isdelivered via an Internet connection provided by an Internet serviceprovider (ISP), but a third party distributes the content. The ISP maynot be responsible for the viewing abilities, copyrights, orredistribution of the content, and may only transfer IP packets providedby the OTT content provider. Examples of OTT content providers includeYOUTUBE, NETFLIX, and HULU, which provide audio and video via IPpackets. Youtube is a trademark owned by Google Inc., Netflix is atrademark owned by Netflix Inc., and Hulu is a trademark owned by Hulu,LLC. OTT content providers may additionally or alternatively providemedia guidance data described above. In addition to content and/or mediaguidance data, providers of OTT content can distribute media guidanceapplications (e.g., web-based applications or cloud-based applications),or the content can be displayed by media guidance applications stored onthe user equipment device.

Media guidance system 600 is intended to illustrate a number ofapproaches, or network configurations, by which user equipment devicesand sources of content and guidance data may communicate with each otherfor the purpose of accessing content and providing media guidance. Theembodiments described herein may be applied in any one or a subset ofthese approaches, or in a system employing other approaches fordelivering content and providing media guidance. The following fourapproaches provide specific illustrations of the generalized example ofFIG. 6.

In one approach, user equipment devices may communicate with each otherwithin a home network. User equipment devices can communicate with eachother directly via short-range point-to-point communication schemesdescribed above, via indirect paths through a hub or other similardevice provided on a home network, or via communications network 614.Each of the multiple individuals in a single home may operate differentuser equipment devices on the home network. As a result, it may bedesirable for various media guidance information or settings to becommunicated between the different user equipment devices. For example,it may be desirable for users to maintain consistent media guidanceapplication settings on different user equipment devices within a homenetwork, as described in greater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. PatentPublication No. 2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005. Different types ofuser equipment devices in a home network may also communicate with eachother to transmit content. For example, a user may transmit content fromuser computer equipment to a portable video player or portable musicplayer.

In a second approach, users may have multiple types of user equipment bywhich they access content and obtain media guidance. For example, someusers may have home networks that are accessed by in-home and mobiledevices. Users may control in-home devices via a media guidanceapplication implemented on a remote device. For example, users mayaccess an online media guidance application on a website via a personalcomputer at their office, or a mobile device such as a PDA orweb-enabled mobile telephone. The user may set various settings (e.g.,recordings, reminders, or other settings) on the online guidanceapplication to control the user's in-home equipment. The online guidemay control the user's equipment directly, or by communicating with amedia guidance application on the user's in-home equipment. Varioussystems and methods for user equipment devices communicating, where theuser equipment devices are in locations remote from each other, isdiscussed in, for example, Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 8,046,801, issuedOct. 25, 2011, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in itsentirety.

In a third approach, users of user equipment devices inside and outsidea home can use their media guidance application to communicate directlywith content source 616 to access content. Specifically, within a home,users of user television equipment 602 and user computer equipment 604may access the media guidance application to navigate among and locatedesirable content. Users may also access the media guidance applicationoutside of the home using wireless user communications devices 606 tonavigate among and locate desirable content.

In a fourth approach, user equipment devices may operate in a cloudcomputing environment to access cloud services. In a cloud computingenvironment, various types of computing services for content sharing,storage or distribution (e.g., video sharing sites or social networkingsites) are provided by a collection of network-accessible computing andstorage resources, referred to as “the cloud.” For example, the cloudcan include a collection of server computing devices, which may belocated centrally or at distributed locations, that provide cloud-basedservices to various types of users and devices connected via a networksuch as the Internet via communications network 614. These cloudresources may include one or more content sources 616 and one or moremedia guidance data sources 618. In addition or in the alternative, theremote computing sites may include other user equipment devices, such asuser television equipment 602, user computer equipment 604, and wirelessuser communications device 606. For example, the other user equipmentdevices may provide access to a stored copy of a video or a streamedvideo. In such embodiments, user equipment devices may operate in apeer-to-peer manner without communicating with a central server.

The cloud provides access to services, such as content storage, contentsharing, or social networking services, among other examples, as well asaccess to any content described above, for user equipment devices.Services can be provided in the cloud through cloud computing serviceproviders, or through other providers of online services. For example,the cloud-based services can include a content storage service, acontent sharing site, a social networking site, or other services viawhich user-sourced content is distributed for viewing by others onconnected devices. These cloud-based services may allow a user equipmentdevice to store content to the cloud and to receive content from thecloud rather than storing content locally and accessing locally-storedcontent.

A user may use various content capture devices, such as camcorders,digital cameras with video mode, audio recorders, mobile phones, andhandheld computing devices, to record content. The user can uploadcontent to a content storage service on the cloud either directly, forexample, from user computer equipment 604 or wireless usercommunications device 606 having content capture feature. Alternatively,the user can first transfer the content to a user equipment device, suchas user computer equipment 604. The user equipment device storing thecontent uploads the content to the cloud using a data transmissionservice on communications network 614. In some embodiments, the userequipment device itself is a cloud resource, and other user equipmentdevices can access the content directly from the user equipment deviceon which the user stored the content.

Cloud resources may be accessed by a user equipment device using, forexample, a web browser, a media guidance application, a desktopapplication, a mobile application, and/or any combination of accessapplications of the same. The user equipment device may be a cloudclient that relies on cloud computing for application delivery, or theuser equipment device may have some functionality without access tocloud resources. For example, some applications running on the userequipment device may be cloud applications, i.e., applications deliveredas a service over the Internet, while other applications may be storedand run on the user equipment device. In some embodiments, a user devicemay receive content from multiple cloud resources simultaneously. Forexample, a user device can stream audio from one cloud resource whiledownloading content from a second cloud resource. Or a user device candownload content from multiple cloud resources for more efficientdownloading. In some embodiments, user equipment devices can use cloudresources for processing operations such as the processing operationsperformed by processing circuitry described in relation to FIG. 5.

As referred herein, the term “in response to” refers to initiated as aresult of. For example, a first action being performed in response to asecond action may include interstitial steps between the first actionand the second action. As referred herein, the term “directly inresponse to” refers to caused by. For example, a first action beingperformed directly in response to a second action may not includeinterstitial steps between the first action and the second action.

FIG. 7 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for, based ondetermining that a message received at a first device of a first userand sent by a second user is related to a media asset previouslydiscussed between the first user and the second user, transmitting arecommendation to the second user, in accordance with some embodimentsof the disclosure. Process 700 may be executed by control circuitry 504(e.g., in a manner instructed to control circuitry 504 by the mediaguidance application). In addition, one or more steps of process 700 maybe incorporated into or combined with one or more steps of any otherprocess or embodiment (e.g., as described in relation to FIGS. 8-13).

Process 700 begins at 702, where control circuitry 504 receives amessage, at a first device of the first user, from a second device ofthe second user. In some embodiments, the message comprisesuser-generated content generated by the second user. For example, themessage may be a Short Message Service (SMS) text message, an email, amessage transmitted through an application (e.g., Facebook, GroupMe), avoicemail message, or another form of digital communication. The firstdevice and the second device may have any or all of the functionality ofuser television equipment 602, user computer equipment 604, and wirelessuser communications device 606. The second device may transmit themessage over a protocol such as the Internet's Simple Mail TransferProtocol (SMTP), Advanced Message Queueing Protocol (AMQP), MessageQueue Telemetry Transport (MQTT), or another messaging protocol. In someembodiments, control circuitry 504 may receive the message overcommunications network 614.

At 704, control circuitry 504 determines whether the first device isprogrammed to refrain from alerting the user to the message. Alertingthe user to the message may include, for example, generating for displaya notification (e.g., on user input interface 510 or display 512),generating an audio output (e.g., through speakers 514), causing thedevice to vibrate, turning on a screen of the device (e.g., on display512), etc. When the first device is not programmed to refrain fromalerting the user to a message, control circuitry 504 may generate fordisplay the message, e.g., on display 512. For example, controlcircuitry 504 may query the device settings of the first device todetermine whether the device is set to, e.g., a do-not-disturb or silentmode. Control circuitry 504 may transmit the query to storage 508, mediaguidance data source 618, or another location where the device settingsof the first device are stored. The query may be transmitted overcommunications network 614. In one example, after transmitting thequery, control circuitry 504 may determine that the first device isprogrammed to refrain from alerting the user to the message if thecontrol circuitry receives a response to the query indicating that thefirst device is set to, e.g., a do-not-disturb or silent mode. Thedo-not-disturb or silent mode may include, for example, notificationsbeing prevented from being generated for display, audio being preventedfrom being outputted, vibrations of the device being prevented fromoccurring, a screen of the device being prevented from turning on, etc.For example, control circuitry 504 may receive, in response to thequery, a data structure that includes a Boolean value indicating whetherthe first device is set to a do-not-disturb mode. If control circuitry504 determines that the first device is programmed to refrain fromalerting the user to the message, process 700 proceeds to 706.Otherwise, process 700 proceeds to 720.

At 706, control circuitry 504 extracts a keyword from the message. Forexample, control circuitry 504 may execute a natural language processingalgorithm, such as the Rapid Automatic Keyword Extraction (RAKE)algorithm, to extract the keyword from the message. Methods, systems,and apparatuses for automatic keyword extraction are described ingreater detail in Csomai et al. U.S. Pat. No. 8,346,534, issued Nov. 6,2011, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.In some embodiments, multiple keywords may be extracted from themessage. The one or more keywords may be stored, for example, in storage508.

At 708, control circuitry 504 may access a database comprising atranscription of a conversation between the first user and the seconduser. In one example, the database comprising the transcription of theconversation may be located in storage 508. In another example, thedatabase may be located at a remote server (e.g., a server associatedwith media content source 616 or media guidance data source 618) thatcontrol circuitry 504 communicates with over communications network 614.In one example, the transcription of the conversation may be a textuallog of digital messages sent between the users, such as an archive ofemails exchanged between the users, for example. In another example, thetranscription of the conversation may be a textual transcription of averbal conversation that occurred between the users, e.g., over a voicecall or video call. The transcription may have been generated by anapplication on one of the user devices (e.g., an email applicationgenerating an archive of email messages).

At 710, control circuitry 504 compares the keyword from the message to akeyword, of the transcription, that is related to a media asset. In someembodiments, control circuitry 504 may select a keyword, of thetranscription, that is related to the media asset by retrieving knownkeywords from a database (e.g., from storage 508 or from a remote serverassociated with media content source 616 or media guidance data source618) and may scan the transcription for a keyword that matches one ofthe known keywords. For example, control circuitry 504 may iteratesequentially through each word in the transcription and compare eachrespective word in the transcription with the known keywords to detectwhether there is a match. If there is a match between a word in thetranscription and one of the known keywords, control circuitry 504 mayselect the word in the transcription as the keyword, of thetranscription, that is related to the media asset. After the controlcircuitry has selected the keyword, of the transcription, that isrelated to the media asset, it may compare the keyword of thetranscription to the keyword extracted from the message at step 706.

At 712, control circuitry 504 determines whether the keyword from themessage matches the keyword from the transcription. For example, controlcircuitry 504 may do a string comparison of the keywords to determinewhether the keywords match. If control circuitry 504 determines thatthere is a match, process 700 proceeds to 714. Otherwise, process 700proceeds to 720. At 714, in response to control circuitry 504determining that the keyword from the message matches the keyword fromthe transcription, control circuitry 504 determines that the message isrelated to the media asset and that the media asset was previouslydiscussed in a conversation between the first user and the second user.

At 716, control circuitry 504 determines a recommendation related tocontent of the message. A recommendation may include, for example, arecommendation for related media, a recommendation for a user action, arecommendation relating to the conversation between the two users, etc.In one example, a recommendation may include a snapshot, for example, ofdisplayed media content on the first user device. As described above,the snapshot may include embedded content that causes supplementalcontent to be included with the recommendation, such as a link to thecontent. In some embodiments, control circuitry 504 may determine thecontent of the message by, for example, using the keyword extracted fromthe message to categorize the content of the message. For example,control circuitry 504 may access a database in storage 508 or mediaguidance data source 618 to retrieve a data structure that maps possibleextracted keywords to content categories. In some embodiments, controlcircuitry 504 may access a user profile in storage 508 or media guidancedata source 618 that indicates user preferences for recommendationsbased on message content. The preferences may be set by the user, forexample, during a system sign-up or initiation process, or thepreferences may be automatically set by the media guidance system.Control circuitry 504 may also take into account past user behavior(e.g., by viewing a user profile or past user activity logs) todetermine a recommendation. Methods, systems, and apparatuses forpopulating and accessing user profiles are described in greater detailin Cordray et al. U.S. Pat. App. Pub. No. 2007/0157222, published Jul.5, 2007, Westberg U.S. Pat. No. 7,984,468, issued Jul. 19, 2011, andWard, III et al. U.S. Pat. No. 8,635,649, issued May 20, 2014, which arehereby incorporated by reference herein in their entirety. For example,if the first user has previously been slow to respond to messagesrelated to previous conversations, whether the first device of the firstuser has or has not been set to refrain from alerting the first user tothe message, control circuitry 504 may determine the recommendation tobe a recommendation for the second user to message the first user at alater time, and may additionally propose scheduling a reminder to do soor an automated message that will be sent out at the later time.

At 718, control circuitry 504 transmits the recommendation to the seconddevice. For example, control circuitry 504 may transmit therecommendation over communications network 614 via communication path612 to second device 604. The recommendation may be presented on thesecond device through, for example, a push notification or textual alerton user input interface 510 or display 512. In another example, therecommendation may be presented via an audio alert, for example throughspeakers 514. At 720, process 700 ends.

FIG. 8 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for comparing akeyword from the message to a keyword, of the transcription, that isrelated to the media asset, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure. Process 800 may be executed by control circuitry 504 (e.g.,in a manner instructed to control circuitry 504 by the media guidanceapplication). In addition, one or more steps of process 800 may beincorporated into or combined with one or more steps of any otherprocess or embodiment (e.g., as described in relation to FIGS. 7 and9-13).

Process 800 begins at 801, where control circuitry 504 begins asubroutine for comparing the keyword from the message to a keyword, ofthe transcription, that is related to the media asset. At 802, controlcircuitry 504 determines whether there is a previously unselectedkeyword within a plurality of keywords of the transcription. Forexample, control circuitry 504 may select the plurality of keywords ofthe transcription by executing a natural language processing algorithm,as described above. Control circuitry 504 may iterate through eachkeyword of the plurality of keywords and determine that there is nopreviously unselected keyword once it has iterated completely throughthe plurality of keywords. Control circuitry may iterate through thekeywords by, for example, assigning each keyword of the plurality ofkeywords an index value (e.g., 1, 2, 3, . . . ) and selecting eachkeyword in order by index. If control circuitry 504 determines thatthere is a previously unselected keyword within the plurality ofkeywords of the transcription, process 800 proceeds to 803. Otherwise,process 800 proceeds to 812.

At 803, control circuitry 504 selects the previously unselected keywordof the transcription. For example, control circuitry 504 may select thepreviously unselected keyword by, as described above, selecting the nextkeyword in the iteration through the plurality of keywords. At 804,control circuitry 504 compares the selected keyword of the transcriptionto keywords indicated by a database of terms related to media assets. Asdescribed at 710, control circuitry 503 may determine the keywordsindicated by the database of terms related to media assets by retrievingknown keywords from a database (e.g., from storage 508 or from a remoteserver associated with media content source 616 or media guidance datasource 618) that are associated with media assets, and comparing thekeyword of the transcription to the known keywords retrieved from thedatabase.

At 805, control circuitry 504 determines whether the selected keyword ofthe transcription matches a term related to a media asset of the mediaassets. For example, control circuitry 504 may do a string comparisonbetween the selected keyword of the transcription and each term relatedto the media asset to determine a match. If control circuitry 504determines that the selected keyword of the transcription matches a termrelated to a media asset of the media assets, process 800 proceeds to806. Otherwise, process 800 proceeds to 802.

At 806, control circuitry 504 determines whether the keyword from themessage matches the selected keyword from the transcription. Forexample, control circuitry 504 may perform a string comparison betweenthe keyword extracted from the message and the selected keyword from thetranscription that matched a term related to a media asset. Controlcircuitry 504 may detect a match if there is a partial match or fullmatch between the keywords. In some embodiments, control circuitry 504may use a fuzzy logic method, where control circuitry 504 assigns avalue between 0 and 1 that represents how closely the keywords matcheach other. If the value representing how closely the keywords matcheach other is above a threshold value, control circuitry 504 maydetermine that there is a partial match or full match between thekeywords. Methods, systems, and apparatuses for determining fuzzy logicvalues are described in greater detail in Aragon U.S. Pat. No.5,276,741, issued May 16, 1991, which is hereby incorporated byreference herein in its entirety. If control circuitry 504 determinesthat the keyword from the message matches the selected keyword from thetranscription, process 800 proceeds to 808. Otherwise, process 800proceeds to 802.

At 808, control circuitry 504 determines whether a term adjacent to theterm that is related to the media asset is associated with a negativeconnotation. For example, control circuitry 504 may determine whether aterm adjacent to the term that is related to the media asset (e.g., theterm that is directly before the term related to the media asset and/orthe term that is directly after the term related to the media asset) isassociated with a negative connotation by executing an intent deductionalgorithm. Methods, systems, and apparatuses for intent deduction aredescribed in greater detail in Pereg et al. U.S. Pat. App. Pub. No.2011/0208522, published Aug. 25, 2011, which is hereby incorporated byreference herein in its entirety. In another example, control circuitry504 may retrieve a database of terms associated with a negativeconnotation, e.g., from storage 508 or media guidance data source 618,and determine whether a term adjacent to the term that is related to themedia asset matches any term within the database of terms associatedwith a negative connotation. If control circuitry 504 determines that aterm adjacent to the term that is related to the media asset isassociated with a negative connotation, process 800 proceeds to 812.Otherwise, process 800 proceeds to 810.

At 810, in response to control circuitry 504 determining that a termadjacent to the term that is related to the media asset is associatedwith a negative connotation, control circuitry 504 compares the keywordfrom the message to the respective keyword of the transcription thatmatches the term. For example, control circuitry may perform a stringcomparison of the keyword from the message and the respective keyword ofthe transcription that matches the term. At 812, in response to controlcircuitry 504 determining that a term adjacent to the term that isrelated to the media asset is not associated with a negativeconnotation, control circuitry 504 refrains from comparing the keywordfrom the message to the respective keyword of the transcription thatmatches the term. For example, control circuitry may refrain fromcomparing the keywords because, regardless of whether or not thekeywords match (indicating that the message is related to the mediaasset and the media asset was previously discussed in a conversationbetween the users), the first user may not be interested in beingalerted to a message that references the media asset in a negativemanner.

FIG. 9 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for determiningthe recommendation related to content of the message, in accordance withsome embodiments of the disclosure. Process 900 may be executed bycontrol circuitry 504 (e.g., in a manner instructed to control circuitry504 by the media guidance application). In addition, one or more stepsof process 900 may be incorporated into or combined with one or moresteps of any other process or embodiment (e.g., as described in relationto FIGS. 7-8 and 10-13).

Process 900 begins at 901, where control circuitry 504 begins asubroutine for determining the recommendation related to content of themessage. At 902, control circuitry 504 determines whether the mediaasset is an episode of a series of episodes. A series of episodes maybe, for example, a sequence of programs broadcast over the same channeland/or following the same storyline. In another example, the series ofepisodes may be a set of programs with shared attributes such as, forexample, characters, actors, directors, etc. Control circuitry 504 mayretrieve metadata on the media asset from media content source 616 overcommunications network 614 via communication path 620, where themetadata includes information such as media type, director and actornames, whether the media asset is an episode of a series of episodes,etc. For example, the metadata may be stored in a data structure wherethe episode field of the data structure includes an episode identifierif the media asset is an episode within a series of episodes or is emptyif the media asset is not an episode within a series of episodes.Control circuitry 504 may determine that the media asset is an episodeof a series of episodes if the episode field of the metadata datastructure includes an episode identifier. If control circuitry 504determines that the media asset is an episode of a series of episodes,process 900 proceeds to 904. Otherwise, process 900 proceeds to 914.

At 904, control circuitry 504 determines whether the content of themessage is related to a different episode of the series. For example,control circuitry 504 may search, in the message, for numbering thatindicates an episode number, such as in the message fragments “Ep 3” or“episode 03”. Control circuitry 504 may search for the numbering by, forexample, executing a string token matching algorithm to detect stringsin the message that match a known format for episode numbering. Controlcircuitry 504 may determine whether the content of the message isrelated to a different episode of the series by comparing the episodenumber referenced in the message with the episode number of the mediaasset. In another example, control circuitry 504 may search, in themessage, for episode titles, for example by comparing fragments of themessage with episode titles retrieved from a database of known episodetitles, e.g., from storage 508 or media guidance data source 618.Control circuitry 504 may determine whether the content of the messageis related to a different episode of the series by comparing the episodetitle referenced in the message with the episode title of the mediaasset. If control circuitry 504 determines that the content of themessage is related to a different episode of the series, process 900proceeds to 906. Otherwise, process 900 proceeds to 908.

At 906, control circuitry 504 determines whether the first user hasviewed the different episode of the series. For example, controlcircuitry 504 may check a “Previously Watched” list in a profile of thefirst user that is stored in, e.g., storage 508 or media guidance datasource 618. User profiles are described in further detail above. Controlcircuitry 504 may determine that the first user has viewed the differentepisode of the series if the different episode is listed in the“Previously Watched” list. Control circuitry 504 may determine that thefirst user has not viewed the different episode of the series if thedifferent episode is not listed in the “Previously Watched” list. Ifcontrol circuitry 504 determines that the first user has viewed thedifferent episode of the series, process 900 proceeds to step 914.Otherwise, process 900 proceeds to step 908.

At 908, control circuitry 504 determines whether the content of themessage comprises a spoiler of the plot of the different episode. Forexample, control circuitry 504 may retrieve plot points (such ascharacter names, narrative arc categories, etc.) of the differentepisode, e.g., from storage 508 or media content source 616, and searchin the message for references to the plot points. Control circuitry 504may determine that the content of the message comprises a spoiler of theplot of the different episode if it finds a reference to one of the plotpoints in the message. If control circuitry 504 determines that thecontent of the message comprises a spoiler of the plot of the differentepisode, process 900 proceeds to step 910. Otherwise, process 900proceeds to step 914.

At 910, in response to determining that the content of the messagecomprises a spoiler of the plot of the different episode, controlcircuitry 504 determines the recommendation to be a recommendation tothe second user to recall the message. For example, the recommendationmay be for the second user to recall the message in order not to spoilthe plot of the different episode for the first user. For example, therecommendation may be a textual notification, e.g., “Your message has aspoiler in it. Recommendation: recall the message.” In another example,there may be a set of recommendation identifiers (e.g., “1”, “2”, “3”,etc.) that each correspond to different potential recommendations. Forexample, recommendation identifier “2” may correspond to arecommendation to the second user to recall the message, andrecommendation identifier “3” may correspond to a recommendation to thesecond user to send a reminder message. Control circuitry 504 maydetermine the recommendation to the second user by selecting anappropriate recommendation identifier.

At 912, control circuitry 504 transmits the recommendation to the seconddevice for the second user to recall the message. For example, controlcircuitry 504 may transmit the recommendation over communicationsnetwork 614 via communication path 612 to second device 604. Asdescribed above, control circuitry 504 may transmit a recommendationidentifier corresponding to the recommendation to the second device forthe second user to recall the message. The recommendation may bepresented on the second device through, for example, a push notificationor textual alert on user input interface 510 or display 512. In anotherexample, the recommendation may be presented via an audio alert, forexample through speakers 514. At 914, in response to determining thatthe content of the message does not comprise a spoiler of the plot ofthe different episode, control circuitry 504 refrains from transmittinga recommendation to the second device for the second user to recall themessage. At 916, process 900 ends.

FIG. 10 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for determiningthat the media asset was previously discussed in a conversation betweenthe first user and the second user, in accordance with some embodimentsof the disclosure. Process 1000 may be executed by control circuitry 504(e.g., in a manner instructed to control circuitry 504 by the mediaguidance application). In addition, one or more steps of process 1000may be incorporated into or combined with one or more steps of any otherprocess or embodiment (e.g., as described in relation to FIGS. 7-9 and11-13).

Process 1000 begins at 1001, where control circuitry 504 begins asubroutine for determining that the media asset was previously discussedin a conversation between the first user and the second user. At 1002,control circuitry 504 determines a present point in time. For example,control circuitry 504 may retrieve a present point in time from mediaguidance data source 618. The present point in time may be represented,for example, as a timestamp data structure including month, day, year,hour, minute, second, etc.

At 1004, control circuitry 504 determines a point in time at which theconversation occurred. For example, control circuitry 504 may retrieve atimestamp of the conversation from the metadata of the transcription ofthe conversation. Control circuitry 504 may determine the point in timeat which the conversation occurred to be any time between when theconversation began and when it ended. Control circuitry 504 may, forexample, group a plurality of sequential messages into a conversation ifeach of the messages occurred within some time limit of each other.Control circuitry 504 may determine that the timestamp of the firstmessage in the sequential messages is the time when the conversationbegan and that the timestamp of the last message in the sequentialmessages is the time when the conversation ended.

At 1006, control circuitry 504 determines whether the present point intime is within a threshold period of time of the point in time at whichthe conversation occurred. For example, control circuitry 504 mayretrieve the threshold period of time from a user profile in storage 508or media guidance data source 618. The threshold period of time valuemay be set by the user, for example, during a system sign-up orinitiation process, or the threshold period of time value may beautomatically set by the media guidance system (e.g., based on a defaultset by an editor). Control circuitry 504 may determine whether thepresent point in time is within the threshold period of time of thepoint in time at which the conversation occurred by calculating thedifference, in time, between the present point in time and the point intime at which the conversation occurred, and determining whether thedifference is less than or equal to the threshold period of time. Ifcontrol circuitry 504 determines that the present point in time iswithin a threshold period of time of the point in time at which theconversation occurred, process 1000 proceeds to 1008. Otherwise, process1000 proceeds to 1010.

At 1008, control circuitry 1008 determines that the media asset waspreviously discussed in a conversation between the first user and thesecond user. At 1010, control circuitry determines that the media assetwas not previously discussed, within the threshold period of time untilthe present point in time, in a conversation between the first user andthe second user.

FIG. 11 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for determiningwhether the first user is viewing the media asset and alerting the firstuser accordingly, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure.Process 1100 may be executed by control circuitry 504 (e.g., in a mannerinstructed to control circuitry 504 by the media guidance application).In addition, one or more steps of process 1100 may be incorporated intoor combined with one or more steps of any other process or embodiment(e.g., as described in relation to FIGS. 7-10 and 12-13).

Process 1100 begins at 1101, where control circuitry 504 begins asubroutine for determining whether the first user is viewing the mediaasset and alerting the first user accordingly. At 1102, controlcircuitry 504 queries a media display device of the first user todetermine a given media asset that the media display device is presentlygenerating for display. For example, control circuitry 504 may query theplayback settings of the media display device to determine a given mediaasset that the media display device is presently generating for display.Control circuitry 504 may transmit the query to storage 508, mediaguidance data source 618, or another location where the playbacksettings of the first device are stored. The query may be transmittedover communications network 614. For example, after transmitting thequery, control circuitry 504 may determine that the first device ispresently generating for display a given media asset if the controlcircuitry receives a response to the query indicating that the mediadisplay device is presently generating for display the media asset. Forexample, control circuitry 504 may receive, in response to the query, amedia asset identifier of the media asset that the media display deviceis presently playing back and generating for display at the mediadisplay device.

At 1104, control circuitry 504 determines whether the given media assetis the media asset that was previously discussed between the first userand the second user. For example, control circuitry 504 may determine akeyword corresponding to the given media asset, for example, byretrieving the keyword from a database of keywords corresponding tomedia assets (e.g., in storage 508 or media guidance data source 618).As discussed above, control circuitry 504 may determine whether thegiven media asset is the media asset that was previously discussedbetween the first user and the second user by, for example, accessing adatabase comprising a transcription of a conversation between the firstuser and the second user. Control circuitry 504 may compare the keywordcorresponding to the given media asset to a keyword, of thetranscription, that is related to the media asset. As described above,if the keywords match, control circuitry 504 may determine that thegiven media asset is the media asset that was previously discussedbetween the first user and the second user. If control circuitry 504determines that the given media asset is the media asset that waspreviously discussed between the first user and the second user, process1100 proceeds to 1106. Otherwise, process 1100 proceeds to 1118. At1106, control circuitry 504 determines that, at the time the message isreceived, the first user is viewing the media asset.

At 1108, control circuitry 504 alerts the first user to the message,notwithstanding that the first device is programmed to refrain fromalerting the first user to the message. As described above, alerting theuser to the message may include, for example, generating for display anotification (e.g., on user input interface 510 or display 512),generating an audio output (e.g., through speakers 514), causing thedevice to vibrate, turning on a screen of the device (e.g., on display512), etc. In one example, after alerting the first user to the message,control circuitry 504 may prompt the first user to respond to themessage with a snapshot of, for example, displayed media content on thefirst user device. The snapshot may include a specific scene that thefirst user is presently viewing, as well as additional content, such asa link to a clip of the scene.

At 1110, control circuitry 504 determines that, during a predeterminedperiod of time from the alerting, the first user has not responded tothe message. For example, control circuitry 504 may access an activitylog of the first device (e.g., at storage 508 or media guidance datasource 618) and search through the logged activities of a given timeperiod, e.g., between the time at which the first user received themessage and the present point in time. For example, control circuitry504 may determine whether the activity log has logged, in the given timeperiod, an outgoing message to the second user.

At 1112, control circuitry 504 transmits the recommendation related tocontent of the message to the second device. As described above, controlcircuitry 504 may transmit the recommendation over communicationsnetwork 614 via communication path 612 to second device 604. Therecommendation may be presented on the second device through, forexample, a push notification or textual alert on user input interface510 or display 512. In another example, the recommendation may bepresented via an audio alert, for example through speakers 514.

At 1114, control circuitry 504 determines whether a second messagecomprising content relating to the media asset is received subsequent totransmitting the recommendation to the second device. For example,control circuitry 504 may, for any messages received at the first devicefrom the second device subsequent to transmitting the recommendation tothe second device, determine whether the second message comprisescontent relating to the media asset through a method described above. Ifcontrol circuitry 504 determines that a second message comprisingcontent relating to the media asset is received subsequent totransmitting the recommendation to the second device, the processproceeds to 1116. Otherwise, process 1100 proceeds to 1118.

At 1116, control circuitry 504 refrains from alerting the first user tothe second message. At 1118, process 1100 ends.

FIG. 12 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for determiningthat the message relates to the media asset and alerting the useraccordingly, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure.Process 1200 may be executed by control circuitry 504 (e.g., in a mannerinstructed to control circuitry 504 by the media guidance application).In addition, one or more steps of process 1200 may be incorporated intoor combined with one or more steps of any other process or embodiment(e.g., as described in relation to FIGS. 7-11 and 13).

Process 1200 begins at 1201, where control circuitry 504 begins asubroutine for determining that the message relates to the media assetand alerting the user accordingly. At 1202, control circuitry 504receives, at the first device of the first user, the message, from thesecond device of the second user. As described above, for example, thesecond device may transmit the message over a protocol such as theInternet's Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), Advanced MessageQueueing Protocol (AMQP), Message Queue Telemetry Transport (MQTT), oranother messaging protocol. In some embodiments, control circuitry 504may receive the message at the first device over communications network614.

At 1204, control circuitry 504 determines whether the first device isprogrammed to refrain from alerting the first user to the message. Asdescribed above, control circuitry 504 may query the device settings ofthe first device to determine whether the device is set to, e.g., ado-not-disturb or silent mode, and based on determining that the deviceis set to, e.g., a do-not-disturb or silent mode, control circuitry 504may determine that the first device is programmed to refrain fromalerting the first user to the message. If control circuitry 504determines that the first device is programmed to refrain from alertingthe first user to the message, process 1200 proceeds to 1206. Otherwise,process 1200 proceeds to 1220.

At 1206, control circuitry 504 determines whether the first user isviewing the media asset. As described above, control circuitry 504 maydetermine whether the first user is viewing the media asset by queryinga media display device of the first user to determine a given mediaasset that the media display device is presently generating for display,and determining whether the given media asset matches the media asset.Control circuitry 504 may determine whether the given media assetmatches the media asset by, for example, comparing unique identifiers ofthe media assets. Methods for determining whether the first user isviewing the media asset are described in further detail below. Ifcontrol circuitry 504 determines that the first user is viewing themedia asset, process 1200 proceeds to 1208. Otherwise, process 1200proceeds to 1220.

At 1208, control circuitry 504 extracts a keyword from the message. Asdescribed above, control circuitry 504 may extract the keyword byexecuting a natural language processing algorithm to extract the keywordfrom the message.

At 1210, control circuitry 504 retrieves keywords from a metadata entryin a database, where the metadata entry comprises metadata describingthe media asset. For example, the database may be located in storage508, media content source 616, or media guidance data source 618. Themetadata describing the media asset may include, for example, keywordscorresponding to characters, actors, directors, producers, genre,channel, media asset type (e.g., video, audio), etc.

At 1212, control circuitry 504 compares the keyword from the message tothe keywords from the metadata entry. At 1214, control circuitry 504determines whether the keyword from the message matches a keyword of thekeywords from the metadata entry. As described above, control circuitry504 may determine whether there is a partial or full match between thekeywords by using a fuzzy logic method. If control circuitry 504determines that the keyword from the message matches a keyword of thekeywords from the metadata entry, process 1200 proceeds to 1216.Otherwise, process 1200 proceeds to 1220.

At 1216, based on determining that the keyword from the message matchesa keyword of the keywords from the metadata entry, control circuitry 504determines that the message relates to the media asset. At 1218, controlcircuitry 504 alerts the first user to the message, notwithstanding thatthe first device is programmed to refrain from alerting the first userto the message. As described above, alerting the user to the message mayinclude, for example, generating for display a notification (e.g., onuser input interface 510 or display 512), generating an audio output(e.g., through speakers 514), causing the device to vibrate, turning ona screen of the device (e.g., on display 512), etc. At 1220, process1200 ends.

FIG. 13 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for determiningwhether the first user is viewing the media asset, in accordance withsome embodiments of the disclosure. Process 1300 may be executed bycontrol circuitry 504 (e.g., in a manner instructed to control circuitry504 by the media guidance application). In addition, one or more stepsof process 1300 may be incorporated into or combined with one or moresteps of any other process or embodiment (e.g., as described in relationto FIGS. 7-12).

Process 1300 begins at 1301, where control circuitry 504 begins asubroutine for determining whether the first user is viewing the mediaasset. At 1302, control circuitry 504 determines whether the media assetis playing back at the first device. For example, control circuitry 504may retrieve (e.g., from storage 508, media content source 616, or mediaguidance data source 618) a given media asset identifier for the mediaasset. For example, as described above, control circuitry 504 may querythe playback settings of the first device to determine a given mediaasset that the first device is presently generating for display. Forexample, control circuitry 504 may receive, in response to the query, amedia asset identifier of the media asset that the first device ispresently playing back and generating for display at the media displaydevice. Control circuitry 504 may compare the media asset identifier ofthe media asset that the first device is presently playing back with thegiven media asset identifier. If control circuitry 504 determines thatthe media asset is playing back at the first device, process 1300proceeds to 1320. Otherwise, process 1300 proceeds to 1304.

At 1304, control circuitry 504 retrieves an entry from a profile of thefirst user. For example, the profile of the first user may be retrievedfrom storage 508 or media guidance data source 618. The entries in theprofile of the first user may include information on, for example,contacts of the user, user activity logs, user preferences, knowndevices associated with the user, etc.

At 1306, control circuitry 504 determines, from the entry, a pluralityof devices of the first user. For example, the entry may list theplurality of devices in a data structure that stores, for example,device identifiers, device IP addresses, etc.

At 1308, control circuitry 504 determines whether a third device isindicated as a device of the plurality of devices by the entry. Forexample, control circuitry 504 may determine whether the plurality ofdevices includes any device that is not the first device. If controlcircuitry 504 determines that a third device is indicated as a device ofthe plurality of devices by the entry, process 1300 proceeds to 1310.Otherwise, process 1300 proceeds to 1322.

At 1310, control circuitry 504 determines whether the media asset isplaying back at the third device. For example, as described above,control circuitry 504 may retrieve (e.g., from storage 508, mediacontent source 616, or media guidance data source 618) a given mediaasset identifier for the media asset. For example, as described above,control circuitry 504 may query the playback settings of the thirddevice to determine a given media asset that the third device ispresently generating for display. For example, control circuitry 504 mayreceive, in response to the query, a media asset identifier of the mediaasset that the third device is presently playing back and generating fordisplay. Control circuitry 504 may compare the media asset identifier ofthe media asset that the third device is presently playing back with thegiven media asset identifier. If control circuitry 504 determines thatthe media asset is playing back at the third device, process 1300proceeds to 1320. In some embodiments, control circuitry 504 may selectadditional devices of the plurality of devices and determine whether themedia asset is playing back at the additional devices. If the mediaasset is not playing back at the third device or the additional devices,process 1300 proceeds to 1322.

At 1320, in response to determining that the media asset is playing backat the third device, control circuitry 504 determines that the firstuser is viewing the media asset. At 1322, in response to determiningthat the media asset is not playing back at the third device (or, insome embodiments, at any of the plurality of devices associated with thefirst user), control circuitry 504 determines that the first user is notviewing the media asset.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of selectively generating alerts, themethod comprising: receiving, at a first device, a message from a seconddevice; and while an alert prevention mode is active on the firstdevice: determining that a content item is being presented, wherein thecontent item is one episode of a series of episodes; determining thatthe message is related to a prior communication between the first deviceand the second device; determining that the prior communication isrelated to the content item and the series; and in response to thedetermining that (i) the message is related to the prior communicationand (ii) the prior communication is related to the content item and theseries, overriding the alert prevention mode, wherein the overridingcomprises causing the first device to generate an alert based on themessage and the prior communication.
 2. The method of claim 1, whereindetermining that the message is related to the prior communicationcomprises: extracting a keyword from the message; retrieving, from adatabase, a transcription of the prior communication; determiningwhether the transcription comprises the keyword; and in response todetermining that the transcription comprises the keyword, determiningthat the message is related to the prior communication.
 3. The method ofclaim 2, wherein the extracting the keyword from the message comprisesexecuting natural language processing.
 4. The method of claim 2, whereinthe determining that the transcription comprises the keyword comprisesdetermining that the keyword from the message matches a keyword of thetranscription.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining thatthe message is related to the prior communication comprises: determininga current time point; determining a second time point at which the priorcommunication occurred; and in response to determining that the currenttime point is within a threshold period from the second time point,determining that that the message is related to the prior communication.6. The method of claim 1, wherein the overriding the alert preventionmode comprises generating at least one of a display alert, an audioalert, and a vibration alert.
 7. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising determining, during a predetermined period of time from theoverriding the alert prevention mode, that the first device has nottransmitted a response to the message.
 8. The method of claim 1, whereinthe alert is further based on the content item being presented.
 9. Themethod of claim 1, further comprising: determining that the messagerelates to a different episode of the series; and in response to thedetermining that the message relates to the different episode,generating, for transmission to the second device, a recommendation torecall the message.
 10. The method of claim 1, wherein determining thatthe content item is being presented comprises: retrieving an entry froma profile; determining, from the entry, a plurality of devicesassociated with the profile; and determining that the content item isbeing presented on a third device of the plurality of devices.
 11. Asystem for selectively generating alerts, the system comprising:communications circuitry configured to transmit and receive data; andcontrol circuitry, coupled to the communications circuitry, configuredto: receive, at a first device via the communications circuitry, amessage from a second device; and while an alert prevention mode isactive on the first device: determine that a content item is beingpresented, wherein the content item is one episode of a series ofepisodes; determine that the message is related to a prior communicationbetween the first device and the second device; determine that the priorcommunication is related to the content item and the series; and inresponse to determining that (i) the message is related to the priorcommunication and (ii) the prior communication is related to the contentitem and the series, override the alert prevention mode, whereinoverriding the alert prevention mode comprises causing the first deviceto generate an alert based on the message and the prior communication.12. The system of claim 11, wherein the control circuitry is configuredto determine that the message is related to the prior communication by:extracting a keyword from the message; retrieving, from a database, atranscription of the prior communication; determining whether thetranscription comprises the keyword; and in response to determining thatthe transcription comprises the keyword, determining that the message isrelated to the prior communication.
 13. The system of claim 12, whereinthe control circuitry is configured to extract the keyword from themessage by executing natural language processing.
 14. The system ofclaim 12, wherein the control circuitry is configured to determine thatthe transcription comprises the keyword by determining that the keywordfrom the message matches a keyword of the transcription.
 15. The systemof claim 11, wherein the control circuitry is configured to determinethat the message is related to the prior communication by: determining acurrent time point; determining a second time point at which the priorcommunication occurred; and in response to determining that the currenttime point is within a threshold period from the second time point,determining that that the message is related to the prior communication.16. The system of claim 11, wherein the control circuitry is configuredto override the alert prevention mode by generating at least one of adisplay alert, an audio alert, and a vibration alert.
 17. The system ofclaim 11, wherein the control circuitry is further configured todetermine, during a predetermined period of time from overriding thealert prevention mode, that the first device has not transmitted aresponse to the message.
 18. The system of claim 11, wherein the alertis further based on the content item being presented.
 19. The system ofclaim 11, wherein the control circuitry is further configured to:determine that the message relates to a different episode of the series;and in response to determining that the message relates to the differentepisode, generate, for transmission to the second device, arecommendation to recall the message.
 20. The system of claim 11,wherein the control circuitry is configured to determine that thecontent item is being presented by: retrieving an entry from a profile;determining, from the entry, a plurality of devices associated with theprofile; and determining that the content item is being presented on athird device of the plurality of devices.